"The most daring, ambitious and by far the best written of the several very long, daring and ambitious books Norman Mailer has so far produced...
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Aug 30, 2008
Roger
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There's probably five or six hundred pages of brilliance in this 1300 page monster, but then there's the interminable recounting of daily intelligence minutia, the stinking heaps of bullshit psycho-theory, and the seemingly endless series of repetitive letters between two neurotics who can't get their heads out of their asses. All of which might be worth slogging through for the sake of the good parts, except when I ran out of pages to turn, the story wasn't even remotely resolved. When I read
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Dec 16, 2008
Michael
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Jan 22, 2012
Perry
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and T.E. Lawrence may both be famous masochists, but they never spent a summer reading over 1300 hundred pages of Norman Mailer like I once did, so they got nothing on me!
This is Mailer's take on the CIA story and he includes all the juicy bits, such as the intrigues in post-WW2 Berlin, the Kennedy and Mafia machinations, Cuba, The Beard and the Bay of Pigs disaster. The detail is incredible, the writing as strong as always, so if you have an interest in the More...
This is Mailer's take on the CIA story and he includes all the juicy bits, such as the intrigues in post-WW2 Berlin, the Kennedy and Mafia machinations, Cuba, The Beard and the Bay of Pigs disaster. The detail is incredible, the writing as strong as always, so if you have an interest in the More...
Feb 27, 2011
switterbug (Betsey)
rated it:
This post-modern novel by Mailer is inarguably the most informed novel of the CIA. This is not callow, veneered, cinema-informed CIA, or any of the "tell-all" non-fiction embellishments of CIA activity. This is a psychological study of the necessary duality of agents, teased from the central soul of the duality of humankind. Mailer has a comprehensive insider's knowledge of the structure and workings of the CIA.
Paradox lives on every layer; the characters in this fiction, More...
Paradox lives on every layer; the characters in this fiction, More...
Jun 01, 2011
Julia
rated it:
I miss Norman Mailer. This was one of his best books, about a guy named Harry Hubbard, a CIA man who is the son of a more famous CIA man and nephew of an even bigger CIA man who has committed a wondrous feat of suicide. I won't spoil it--but some suicides are harder than others.
It's a twisted tale. Harry is married to his uncle's ex wife, another CIA agent; he has been for several years pigeon holed by the CIA. Suddenly his wife Kittredge urges him to escape with some of their savings. More...
It's a twisted tale. Harry is married to his uncle's ex wife, another CIA agent; he has been for several years pigeon holed by the CIA. Suddenly his wife Kittredge urges him to escape with some of their savings. More...
Jan 11, 2012
Francisco
rated it:
This book is over 1200 pages long and weighs over eleven pounds. Readers making it to the book's finale will, on page 1,242, find themselves greeted with the phrase "[t]o be continued." Though twenty years have elapsed since the book's publication, no additional installment has -- to my knowledge -- ever been released. It also bears noting that Norman Mailer is, according to several reputable sources close to me, very likely deceased. Given the foregoing, I have no alternative but to
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Jan 25, 2011
Chrissie
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Apr 01, 2011
Steve
rated it:
A massive book. Highpoints include postwar Berlin and the events leading up to the Bay of Pigs. A major problem though, is that there are too many low points; too many points when I wondered why I was reading this. The entire period spent on Montevidio, as well as the psychological theory of Alpha and Omega were carried out far too long. Part of the difficulty, I suppose, is that nothing ever really happens to Hubbard. He is merely a device for recording events and does not partake in any o
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May 18, 2011
Robin
rated it:
If I could give this book 10 stars I would! This novel had me engrossed from page one and never let me go. It is the perfect blend of history and fiction. It deftly teaches the reader about the beginnings of the cold war and the agencies that were created to wage it while offering up some of the best characters and plot lines ever written. Don't be intimidated by the over 700 pages of small print. When you get to the last page, you will beg for more. My only regret is that Mailer never made good
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Dec 02, 2010
Chris
rated it:
The book is quite the tome at 1280 pages. Don't go into this spy story expecting James Bond action and adventure. The book provides a lot of information that is tangential to the story and some information you think is tangential only to realize 300 pages later that it means something to the story. All in all this is a worthwhile read if you get invested in the characters early on like I did. I can see where it would be a chore to get through if you are not so invested. Mr. Mailer sucked me
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Jan 31, 2011
Anna
rated it:
This novel is wide-ranging story of Cold War CIA activity in which historical facts rest upon a foundation of imagined interpersonal and organizational dynamics. I so enjoyed Mailer's keen insight into human relations (and the subject matter is itself intriguing) that I absolutely couldn't put it down. For instance (on p. 971!), his protagonist observes: "If I had commenced my work in liaison on the assumption that I was a connective principle, a conjunction, so to speak, I had by now decid
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Jan 17, 2011
Lobstergirl
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Feb 25, 2009
Myra
rated it: 
Not an easy book to read. At 1282 pages it took me way too long. I'm a slow reader anyway. I read every word rather than groups of words. Don't know why, except that I have always loved reading aloud, because I love the sound and feel of words. I guess maybe I do the same thing when I'm reading to myself.
At any rate, back to Harlot's Ghost. The book covers the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and much of it focuses on the CIA involvement in Cuba, and how much the CIA More...
At any rate, back to Harlot's Ghost. The book covers the period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and much of it focuses on the CIA involvement in Cuba, and how much the CIA More...
Aug 04, 2008
Mike
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Sep 01, 2007
Arun
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So what can you say from an erudite and complex 1300 page novel? It better finish everything it can in those 1300 pages, now doesn't it?
But no, it does not. It is possibly the quintessential novel of the last 55 years by an American author.
It is probably one of the best memoirs of a complex organization that is mired in secrecy.
It is probably one of my favorite novels that I have read.
Norman Mailer definitely surprised me. I came upon him after r More...
But no, it does not. It is possibly the quintessential novel of the last 55 years by an American author.
It is probably one of the best memoirs of a complex organization that is mired in secrecy.
It is probably one of my favorite novels that I have read.
Norman Mailer definitely surprised me. I came upon him after r More...
Aug 06, 2011
Rick
rated it:
In Harlot's Ghost, Mailer employs his tremendous research on the intelligence community and assassination conspiracies to create a novel that you don't want to put down, despite its 1282-page length. Among works of fiction one rarely finds the bibliography of books consulted which Mailer includes here, along with lists of (1) characters, organizations, cryptonyms, and cover names; (2) places; (3) and foreign phrases (with translation), encountered in the novel. On the last page of the novel appe
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Aug 10, 2010
Dan
rated it:
A novel about the CIA, from its early years during the Second World War until the early 1960s (Mailer was planning to write about the CIA’s more recent history in a sequel; unfortunately he did not live to do this). In addition to the themes and conventions typical of novels about spies (intelligence, counter-intelligence, moles, code names), Mailer’s emphasis is on the relation between spying and the elite class in America. The novel is long, but it is not as dense as some others (Don DeLillo
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Sep 04, 2007
Adina
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Feb 18, 2011
Brian
rated it:
Interesting look at the CIA during the second world war and subsequent cold war. Parts of the book are really good and it is hard to stop reading. About 2/3 of the way through it grinds to a halt as the story is advanced through a series of letters, really hard to get through at that point. The end is pretty anticlimactic and leaves you wanted more. Really, really long book and one that I had to break into two different reading shifts.
Dec 22, 2007
Lesley
rated it:
Mailer, check.
Too long, check.
Creaky structure, check.
Weird pseudo-psycho theorizing, check.
Obsession with buggery, check.
Tin ear for female characters, check.
BRILLIANT, check.
Yes, brilliant. Mailer's CIA novel, through to the Bay of Pigs, Cuban missile crisis, and Kennedy assassination. 1200 pages, give or take (who's counting at this length?). No minimalism here. This man knew how to breathe deep, to write expansively, to be outrageous, to give the More...
Too long, check.
Creaky structure, check.
Weird pseudo-psycho theorizing, check.
Obsession with buggery, check.
Tin ear for female characters, check.
BRILLIANT, check.
Yes, brilliant. Mailer's CIA novel, through to the Bay of Pigs, Cuban missile crisis, and Kennedy assassination. 1200 pages, give or take (who's counting at this length?). No minimalism here. This man knew how to breathe deep, to write expansively, to be outrageous, to give the More...
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May 09, 2011
Daniel
rated it:
An awesome book that gives much pause to thought on the failings of America's golden generation as it moved from post-war into cold war. A rich and very human portrait of how some of the US's best and brightest git tangled in all the wrong situations for perhaps what seemed like the right reasons, for as long as innocence allowed them to. BTW, still waiting for the supposed part II... shame he never picked it back up.
Sep 30, 2010
Ginny
rated it:
Dear Norman Mailer, if you didn't finish this book, why should I?
1310 pages, and yet, no character resolution? Seriously?
Honestly, the first 200 or so pages of this book were amazing. Great writing, great tone, and oh man, he set up the chess board in such a beautiful way that I was like, "YES! I can't wait to figure out how this mess happened! I am so into this book!"
And then... it went on... and on... and we didn't come back to any of those situat More...
1310 pages, and yet, no character resolution? Seriously?
Honestly, the first 200 or so pages of this book were amazing. Great writing, great tone, and oh man, he set up the chess board in such a beautiful way that I was like, "YES! I can't wait to figure out how this mess happened! I am so into this book!"
And then... it went on... and on... and we didn't come back to any of those situat More...
Apr 15, 2009
Daryl
rated it:
Have read it three times--and this is a looong novel. I don't know who coached him about the CIA--suspect that it was William Buckley Jr.--but thoroughly believable tale thatincorporates the supernatural, espionage, psychoanalysis, and the age-old story of lust into, what I consider, a magnum opus from a true master of American literature. (Requires attention and patience which will be rewarded.)
Jul 07, 2011
Ryan
rated it:
It was good. I liked the writing style, but I didn't quite move me. I think I would like it better if I had a discussion about it with someone. I didn't buy into the Alpha and Omega theory in the beginning of the book, which made all future references to it a little hard to take seriously. I feel that if I would have accepted the premise of the Alpha and Omega theory from the beginning, the book may have been a bit more moving or insightful.
Jan 23, 2012
Cora
rated it:
If an author wants me to commit to a 1200 page book, it had better be a helluva yarn. Harlot's Ghost isn't. Mailer may be a well loved and respected author but I'm guessing it wasn't this brick of a book that did it for him. I recommend a reader scan the final line on the final page before committing - it won't spoil anything and will potentially add weeks to your life.
Nov 12, 2009
edgardo
rated it:
A rock climbing friend turned me on to this book. This is an immense book at around 1,000 pages so take your time with. I enjoyed it simply because of Mailer's usage of the English language. The characters were rather disfunctional and I didn't really appreciate most of them, but I couldn't put the book down and what a wordsmith Mr. Mailer was.
Dec 31, 2008
Peter
rated it:
Norman Mailer's take on the evolution of the Cold War and the corruption of the CIA. As with much of this man's work, Mailer weaves a solid grounding in fact with a significant story telling ability. The one disappointment in the book is the suggestion that it is part one and there never is a part two.
Feb 10, 2009
Tony
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Apr 16, 2011
Pachuban
rated it:
It's very good. The fifth star is for its heft. Or maybe that's the first star. One of the stars, anyway. With limited access to English language books, and at ten dollars a pop, this one is right up there with Against the Day for reading value.
Aug 06, 2011
Jussi
rated it:
An excellent novel about the inner workings of the CIA and, at the same time, people. A massive tome but certainly worth the read. It continues to amaze me how the Nobel committee can keep not recognizing Mailer...
